War in Iran Drives Heating Oil Prices Sharply Higher

Branch manager Bernd Baumanns, who monitors global oil prices daily from Duisburg’s south, calculates that a single-family home consuming an average of 3,000 liters of heating oil per year will pay around 2,000 euros more this year.

Customer Ulrich Bünger, who owns 23 small apartments, tries to lighten the mood as Araz arrives. “Here comes the man with the liquid gold!” he jokes. Bünger has just ordered 3,000 liters. “I couldn’t wait any longer,” he says, gesturing apologetically toward his nearly empty tank.

Global Markets React

The surge in heating oil costs is directly linked to geopolitical turmoil. Crude oil prices rose sharply in early Thursday trading, with Brent crude climbing more than 3.58 percent to 97.67 US dollars per barrel. The price remained below the psychologically important 100-dollar mark, but volatility remains extreme.

On Wednesday, Brent had temporarily fallen by more than five percent, underscoring the market’s sensitivity to news from the Persian Gulf. The US and Iran exchanged renewed mutual attacks in the Strait of Hormuz despite an existing ceasefire and ongoing negotiations to end the war.

The US government stated that its measures were “restrained, purely defensive, and aimed at maintaining the ceasefire.” Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department placed an Iranian authority responsible for collecting fees for passage through the strait on its sanctions list, declaring that the fee plan violates international law.

The de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is massively burdening the global economy. “We expect either an agreement on a new ceasefire in the next two weeks or the collapse of the current ceasefire with a resumption of active hostilities,” explained Madison Cartwright, senior geoeconomics analyst at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Cartwright put the probability of an agreement at 70 percent, but stressed that the future of the strait remains uncertain. Insurance for a single passage has become “unaffordably expensive,” she noted.

Broader Financial Impact

Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone in Melbourne, said markets continue to expect a deal, but there remains a clear risk that the parties will break off negotiations. The uncertainty is rippling through global financial markets.

In equity markets, Japan’s Nikkei index edged down 0.1 percent to 64,928 points in early trade, after briefly hitting a record high the previous day. The broader Topix index lost 0.2 percent. In Germany, broker IG priced the DAX 0.8 percent lower below the key 25,000-point mark, after it closed nearly unchanged at 25,177 points.

On Wall Street, the Dow gained 0.4 percent to 50,644 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 struggled to hold early gains. The S&P 500, also trading at record levels, inched up to 7,520 points. Goldman Sachs strategists raised their year-end target for the S&P 500 to 8,000 points, citing an exceptionally strong first-quarter earnings season.

Amid the broader market movements, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff reported record quarterly revenues and deal closures, but the company’s outlook disappointed, fueling fears of a so-called ‘SaaSpocalypse’ — the displacement of traditional enterprise software by AI models. Benioff forecast second-quarter revenue of 11.27 to 11.35 billion US dollars.

Back in Duisburg, Araz continues his rounds. “Every morning I look at the oil prices, and when they’ve gone up again, I know no customer will call,” he says. For now, those who can are buying, but the strain is palpable.